Ward Against Disaster Read online

  Blood wept from the gash. It was pale and watery, a sure sign the water around the baby had been damaged. He needed to move as fast as possible. The surgical instructions said to cut along the bulge, starting at the navel and slicing down through tissues, fat, and muscles. Next make an incision in the womb and remove the child then stitch the mother back up and pray she didn’t bleed to death or get an infection.

  He glanced at Celia to ensure she was ready. Cutting into someone without an anesthetic was dangerous. His thigh ached with a reminder about how much it hurt to be stabbed. If Rhia moved too much there was a risk he’d injure the baby even more. Celia nodded.

  This was it.

  Red flickered across his vision and he forced it back, but Rhia’s white aura flooded into its place, painting everything in crisp detail. The tight white ball within him, his own imagined magic, pulsed in sympathy, something he’d never imagined before. But whatever got him through this—whether it was a by-product of Allette’s teaching or not—he’d take it.

  He pressed his knife against Rhia’s belly, drawing it through her flesh. She screamed and twitched. Her muscles trembled with what had to be an extraordinary will to stay as still as possible.

  Clenching his jaw, he shoved all thoughts of her from his mind. Soon. It would be over soon. He couldn’t worry about the agony he was inflicting. He had to save her life.

  He checked the first incision. Good. Clean.

  A burst of imaginary white magic raced down his arms and over his hands as if propelled by him, his necromancy gift somehow let loose. He scrambled to pull it back but it slid over Rhia’s skin and disappeared.

  She drew in a shaky breath. The muscles in her jaw and around her eyes relaxed for a heartbeat, then she whimpered and the pain flooded her face again. She panted, harsh shallow gasps, and the trembling returned.

  Another burst of imagined magic escaped his control. Its heat soothed the red energy stinging his hands. Rhia’s trembling stopped then resumed. Perhaps not so imagined after all, and somehow it eased her pain.

  The white magic that was curled tight in his mind’s eye billowed, and he grasped it. He focused on creating a steady pulse of it from his fingers into her skin. Her trembling eased even more, and her breath relaxed a bit.

  Trying to focus on two things at once, he ran his free hand over her womb, feeling for the baby. The magic flowed from him to Rhia. His head was light as if he’d stood too fast. Just a little more. He could do this.

  He made his final incision. Viscous fluid poured over his hands. Rhia moaned, and he pushed more magic to his hands. He set the knife aside, reached inside her, and eased the baby from the incision.

  Its wrinkled, red form filled his cupped palms. Blood wept from a cut along its back, and it wasn’t breathing. Ward’s chest spasmed. He hadn’t been fast enough.

  A burst of magic shot out from him. It surged around him, filling his mind’s eye with white and red, life and death, and wrapping around the infant.

  He couldn’t catch his breath. The magic consumed him. The white burned away the red—as if it was somehow more than just necromancy and soul magic. As if his imagination yearned for him to be something else. Light radiated from the cut, shrinking into a brilliant white sliver. With a final blinding burst, it sealed the cut shut on the baby’s back.

  Ward had no idea what had just happened, and he struggled to focus. He’d still need to stitch and bind Rhia. Necromancy didn’t heal, it only patched temporarily, which was why it was banned.

  Darkness threatened him and hot weariness pulled at him. Rhia still needed him, and the child still wasn’t breathing. Goddess, why wasn’t it breathing? He couldn’t hear it or feel the rise of its tiny chest against his palms.

  He blinked his sight clear. Sounds flooded him. Rhia was screaming, Ingrith was yelling. Celia was the only quiet one, staring at him with wide icy eyes.

  Celia jerked against Rhia’s writhing. “Give him to me. Ingrith, get over here and hold her down.”

  “But he’s not breathing,” Ingrith said from the doorway, Ward’s rucksack in her hands.

  “And if Ward doesn’t stitch up Rhia, they both won’t be breathing,” Celia said.

  Ingrith dropped beside Ward, setting the rucksack beside him, and took Celia’s position holding Rhia down.

  The words of the surgery cut through the haze in his mind. Mucous in the mouth prevented the first breath. But he needed to cut the birth cord before stitching up the incisions in Rhia. “Let me cut the cord, then remove the mucus from the child’s mouth.” He handed the infant to Celia, severed the cord, and knotted it.

  Please let her get the child breathing. With bloody hands he pulled his case of surgical tools from the bottom of his bag. He threaded a needle and pinched the incision in her womb closed, shoving more magic down his hands into Rhia to keep her still. She whimpered but stopped moving. His focus narrowed to the white stream of magic, now swollen into a thick ribbon, and the silk thread in his needle. Somewhere, far away, a tiny voice wailed and a pressure he hadn’t realized he had eased from his chest.

  He finished stitching the inside incision, and on instinct shoved a burst of magic into it, just like he’d done with the child’s injury. It was only a patch, and he could be potentially making it worse. He could only pray once the necromancy wore off, the stitches would do their job.

  Light flared in his mind’s eye and blackness shot with veins of red swarmed in after. He bit the inside of his cheek and blinked, trying to clear his eyes. Two more cuts to go: the outer incision and the dagger wound.

  The silk thread jumped in and out of focus, and he blinked again, harder, desperate to clear his vision.

  More stitches, more magic.

  His chest burned.

  The ball of power around his heart had shrunken to a pinprick. He didn’t need his imagination to show him he was nearly spent. His limbs burned, and his hand trembled as he tied the last knot on Rhia and then sewed the last, tiny stitches on the baby where the cut had been. Goddess, there was nothing left in him. His chest ached, his soul was scraped out and empty.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. He needed a minute. That was all. Then he could bind her stitches and rest. Goddess, he needed to rest.

  Something boomed, roaring through him. He struggled to face the sound, but his body was heavy, swollen, and slow.

  The boom came again, pounding on the door. “Lady Ingrith, let us in!”

  It was the sergeant. Rhia lay gasping on the floor, holding her baby, Ward was covered in her blood with his surgical tools in plain sight, and Talbot lay dead on the other side of the room.

  “Lady Ingrith!”

  Ingrith leapt to her feet. “Hide. I can take care of this.”

  “I can’t leave Rhia,” Ward said. Goddess, his head swam. Pricks of red snapped across his vision, and ice seeped past the heat.

  “I won’t let you get arrested.” Celia grabbed his hand and hauled him to his feet.

  The room spun and his knees buckled.

  Ingrith gasped and reached for him, but he slid back to the ground.

  “Ingrith!” More pounding on the door.

  He could barely see. A shiver swept across him, and frostbite burned his blood-covered hands. “I can’t.”

  “Yes you can,” Celia growled. “They’ll arrest you.”

  “I need a minute or twenty. You go, break me out.”

  “Ward?”

  Something heavy boomed against the door. The wood cracked. They were battering it down.

  “I’ll be ready when you come for me,” he said.

  “I can help.” Ingrith straightened and faced the door. “But you have to get out of here. I’ll meet you in your suite.”

  Celia glared at Ward, her gaze icy, adding to the chill within him. Red crackled up his wrists, and he twitched. She growled and rushed to the window.

  The door boomed again, and with a great crack, flew open. The sergeant and his men stormed into the room and staggered to a halt, their gaz
es flying from Rhia to Ward to Talbot.

  “Lady—?” the sergeant asked.

  “That’s Duchess, now.” Ingrith squared her shoulders. A hint of a tremor raced over her, the only sign she was afraid. “My father—”

  “Is dead and that man is covered in blood.” The sergeant jerked his hand, and the soldiers surged past him to Ward. “I’ll take care of this.”

  “It’s taken care of,” Ingrith said.

  The soldiers hesitated.

  “Don’t you worry. I’ll have the physician sent up to check on both of you. I think you and Lady Rhia would be more comfortable in a clean suite.” The sergeant motioned to the men and they swept into the room, picking up Rhia and the baby and taking Ingrith’s elbow.

  Two more men grabbed Ward and hauled him to his feet. He tried to break free, but his limbs had no strength. The room twisted and spun, and cold red magic snapped over his hands and arms.

  The sergeant turned to Ward, sneering, black smoke weeping from his eyes. “Lock him up.”

  Twenty - Six

  The men stormed out of the suite dragging Ward with them, while Celia hid on Ingrith’s balcony, biting the inside of her cheek. She would not run her dagger through the sergeant’s heart. No matter how much she really wanted to. Killing him wouldn’t do Ward any good… Well, it might actually, but even if it did, Ward wasn’t in any shape to run. He sagged between the soldiers, stumbling over his feet, barely conscious.

  What in the name of the Goddess had he done? Magic still tingled over her skin. She didn’t know how, but when Ward had finished sewing Rhia shut, her wounds didn’t look freshly stitched, they looked almost four days old. Red still edged the stitches, but not nearly as much as when Ward had first sewn them, and there wasn’t any swelling.

  It was impossible, even in the impossible world of magic. Necromantic magic…death magic didn’t heal. But she couldn’t deny what she’d seen.

  When everyone had left, she slipped from the balcony into the room and strode to the open doorway. Outside, the hall was empty. Voices came from a door on the other side of the hall a few feet down. They sounded like Ingrith and the sergeant. Ingrith was still arguing with him over Ward. At some point, the horror of her situation was finally going to sink in. Her father was dead, her nephew born of illegal surgery, and something horrible was devouring the minds and souls of the people of Dulthyne. Celia could only pray Ingrith would keep it together long enough for Ward to do whatever he was going to do.

  If he was right, there were only two options: wait for help to arrive or find the Fortia Vas and still wait for help to arrive.

  She had to get Ward out of the dungeon and away from Dulthyne.

  Finally, something she knew how to do.

  Footsteps pounded down the hall, and she ducked back into the room, hiding behind the door. Nazarius rushed in. His hands dropped to his hilts, and he spun toward Celia’s hiding spot as if he could sense her. “What in the Dark Son’s name happened?”

  “The curse got Talbot. Ward’s been arrested. We have to get him out.” She strode around the door to the hall.

  Nazarius grabbed her arm and jerked her to face him. She let him pull her close—it would make it easier to disarm him if she had to. “Storming in isn’t going to do Ward any good. We need to go to Jotham. He’ll—”

  “He’ll what? Petition Talbot? He’s not in charge anymore, and the sergeant isn’t listening to the new duchess. Even if they aren’t possessed by the curse there’s still nothing anyone can do. It’s clear Ward did a surgery. You know the punishment for that, and it’ll be you who’s forced to take Ward’s head.”

  “I won’t execute Ward.” But Nazarius’s tone lost energy. He didn’t seem convinced of that.

  She raised an eyebrow, letting him know she saw through his pathetic attempt at lying.

  “Fine. I won’t execute Ward today.”

  She grabbed the hilt of his long dagger and shoved him. He stumbled back, the movement sliding the blade free of its sheath, and she pointed the tip at his heart. “You won’t execute Ward, period.”

  “I can’t promise that.” His mouth pinched tight. It looked like it had hurt to say that. His gaze dipped to the dagger then back to her face. He didn’t draw his sword, but then they both knew he was just as skilled as she was and likely didn’t have to. “My actions are not my own.”

  “Your actions are always your own. The Grewdian Council is just an excuse to ease your conscience when you know you’re doing the wrong thing.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “I know Ward is the best man I’ve ever known.”

  Nazarius snorted. “Knowing your history, I’d say being the best man you’ve ever known wouldn’t be that difficult.”

  “Amazing. Quayestri really are heartless.” There was no point in continuing this conversation. Nazarius had shown his true colors. He was only using Ward—for what, she had no idea, but none of that mattered anymore—and it seemed once Ward’s usefulness was over, Nazarius would happily abandon him. Well, if there was one thing being with Ward had taught her, you never abandoned your friends.

  She marched to the door, but Jotham ran in clutching a book, his yellow robes slashing the air around his ankles.

  “You have to do something, now.” His wide eyes jumped from Celia, the long dagger in her hand, to over her shoulder, presumably to Nazarius.

  “Nazarius isn’t interested in taking action. At least, not any action the Council hasn’t sanctioned.”

  “What?” A line formed between Jotham’s brows.

  “Ward,” Nazarius said, his tone dark. “He’s been arrested for surgery.”

  “He what—?” Jotham’s gaze jumped to Talbot’s corpse and the pool of Rhia’s blood a few feet away, then it leapt back to them. “No. I mean the Fortia Vas. You have to get it now.”

  “Goddess above, am I the only honorable one in the room?” The irony was disgusting. Between two of the Goddess’s men and Celia, who used to kill for a living, she was the only one willing to do the right thing.

  “There’s no time. We need this dagger.” Jotham opened the book and flipped to the page with a picture of a dagger on it. “I’ve foreseen that the curse is closing in on it. If the curse gets a hold of it, we won’t be able to keep it at bay. You have to hurry.”

  “Where is it?” Nazarius asked.

  “I can’t believe you’re thinking of leaving Ward in Talbot’s dungeon.” But if the dagger really was in danger, Ward would be willing to sacrifice himself for her to get it. Damn that necromancer. She was not going to abandon him.

  “It’s in the altar chamber. I need to get you a map. Meet me by the library doors.” Jotham dropped the book on a side table beside the door and rushed from the room.

  “Dark Son’s curses.” Celia slammed Nazarius’s dagger into the table beside the book. It stuck in the wood, vibrating with the force of her throw.

  “Ward will be fine,” Nazarius said, his voice soft.

  “You don’t know that.” He’d saved Rhia’s life, he didn’t deserve to be locked up for even a minute.

  “He’d want us to go after the dagger.”

  She glared at Nazarius, letting all her frustration and anger and worry ice her eyes. The Tracker didn’t flinch, in fact his expression softened even more.

  Goddess, could he see it? Could he see the truth about how she felt about Ward? Everything within her screamed to keep Ward safe. Not because she might die again, but because if something happened to him, her heart would certainly die. It didn’t make any sense. She cared for him so deeply it hurt.

  And he would never forgive her if she went after him instead of the dagger.

  “I hate you, you know that?” she growled. It was childish, but she needed to hate someone as much as she hated herself in that moment.

  Nazarius drew close and yanked his dagger from the table. “I know. It’s been foretold you’ll hate me more in the future.”

  His words chilled her. “Just because a Se
er sees it, doesn’t make it true.”

  “I pray you’re right.”

  Movement in the hall caught Celia’s attention. Ingrith crept into the doorway. Her green eyes widened at the sight of Nazarius holding a dagger, then hardened.

  “The sergeant is demanding Ward’s head.”

  “Well, that didn’t take long.” Nazarius slid the weapon into the sheath at his hip.

  Celia grabbed Ingrith’s hand and drew her into the room, closing the door behind her as best she could, given the soldiers had kicked it in moments ago. “You need to stall him.”

  “I’m trying, but you have to tell me what’s going on. My father— He—” Her gaze jumped to Talbot’s body.

  Celia squeezed Ingrith’s fingers. “You need to be strong.”

  Ingrith drew in a ragged breath. “I need to know what’s happening.”

  Goddess above, should Celia tell the truth? There really wasn’t time for anything else, and Ingrith had a right to know. “Diestro’s curse has returned.”

  “No.” Ingrith paled, the freckles dusting her nose and cheeks standing out sharp against her skin.

  Celia squeezed tighter, trying to root Ingrith in the physical, keep her focused on the here and now, anything to keep her from turning into a weeping, terrified girl. She needed to stay strong, for Ward’s sake. “There’s a hope. A dagger that will keep it at bay, but we need to get it first. You just have to keep the sergeant busy for a little while.”

  “But, Ward—”

  “Please,” Nazarius said, his voice strained. “The curse is closing in on the dagger, and if we don’t go to the altar chamber and get it, Dulthyne will be lost.”

  Ingrith’s gaze slid to the open book on the desk and the picture of LeRoux’s Fortia Vas, and she frowned.

  “It won’t take us long. Once we get the dagger, we can free Ward.”

  “The sergeant isn’t listening to me.”

  Celia offered a wry smile. “You’re duchess now. Make him.”

  Twenty - Seven

  Ward sat against the back of the cell, trembling and hugging his knees to his chest with his blood-encrusted hands. Rhia’s blood. He’d cut her open and saved her life and the life of her son, and yet all he could think about was the magic woven into her life essence.